October 4, 2008

Athirasam

Athirasam was not a very common sweet in my home and as a place where I was bought up too. Neiappam took the place of athirasam in all our functions. But Athirasam is a very much common in all functions of Tamil Iyers. We get to taste this sweet occasionally for marriages where the girl is from a Tamil Iyer family. I was introduced to this sweet when I was a kid aged 6 or 7. My neighbor's daughterwas married to a Tamil Iyer family and they had insisted on Athirasam as part of Cheeru. Those were days, when the whole village took part in the preprations of marriage. Murukku and athirasam was prepared at my home. I had watched my neighbor hood aunties making these discs. Amma was also part of the team. But the sweet was not prepared at home.

For long I was thinking of trying it at home. I have heard its not easy to get it right at the first attempt. I rang up my Amma to ask about the measurements. She told me for one glass of rice, one glass of jaggery and explained the steps. I took mental note of all that she said and proceeded. Amma specifically asked me to leave the dough for few hours. I get impatient soon. After 5 hrs. started making it. When I started making I felt the dough has turned stiff. Added few drops of milk and kneaded it. Made a disc and slowly slided into oil. I could see some formations coming out of the disc. Slowly each layer was coming starting off from the outer end. In seconds the whole thing disintegrated and the result was some fried crumbs. I felt jaggery is too much and thought may be Amma has got the measurement wrong (!!!) since she doesn't make this at home. I added some rice flour and tried again. I was confronted with the same result. I felt its better to stop it there. The fried crumbs was very tasty and it got over in no time. I updated Amma of the outcome. She was very much perplexed about the result. Next day, early morning I got a call from Amma. She has found out where I had gone wrong. She said I have misunderstood the measurement. Amma had told 1 glass rice and I took it as 1 glass flour. Then I adjusted dough accordingly and this is the result you see. Started with a disaster and ended with a not so perfect looking but soft athirasams.

Soak 1 cup rice in water for 45 minutes. Drain and spread on a kitchen towel. When it is still moist and not dried fully, powder it in a mixer grinder and sieve to get fine flour. I get them powdered in a near by flour mill.

For one cup rice you will get 2 cups of flour. I am not sure about the results with store bought flour. You will have to try at your risk.

Prepare jaggery syrup by heating jaggery and water to single thread consistency. If you drop a teaspoon of syrup in a cup water, you should be able to roll into a soft ball. Remove the syrup from fire. Add a teaspoon of powdered cardamom to the syrup. Slowly stir in the rice flour to the syrup. Mix and knead to form a dough similar to that of chapati. Leave the dough overnight or at least 5 hrs to get soft athirasams.

Take lemon sized ball off the dough. Press into discs of the size of pooris on your palm. Slide into the hot oil. Deep fry. After you slide them into the oil, wait for it to rise to top. Gently flip and then fry of few seconds. You get 15 nos with this measurement.

Update: If the flattened discs fall apart on deep frying, add some more of rice flour to the dough and try again. This may be due to more amount of jaggery.

making athirasam 3 years back was a big disaster for me... I burned my finger..and the whole dough went into the bin(my granny said later that they could be made into appams).never tried after that.. yours have come out perfect..feel like trying it soon again..